Content is at the centerstage of Social Media. While we all associate content to be textual stories, video, audio and pictures, one format of content makes it easy to understand nuances of social media.

This is the pictorial representation of the various facets of social media- in the form of diagrams.

‘Social Media’ by itself is a generic term used to represent various facets of this vast discipline- from understanding the various elements associated with it, to the platforms and vehicles and even to the relationships between the players.

I am collecting some of them and mentioning some quick ones here. Do add some more.

• The Webtrend map: You would have seen this earlier in its earlier 3 versions. A cool version of the various Web properties mapped om the form of a Tokyo sub system. This is not just Social Media properties, but hey, if it is about Web trends, you know what to expect in times like these. Covered all across the web, this even sells in case you need to buy it- for about $49- printed version available. Click to enlarge- and enjoy!

Web Trends Map from www.InformationArchitects.jp

• The Periodic Table of Social Media Elements:

Large Size here

For all those who hate chemistry. Rejoice. And get some pervert pleasure from this.

Rick Liebling- the guy who made this, clearly was either good at chemistry in school or sucked at it so bad- he decided to take out his frustrations by getting back. A Social Media periodic table. Believe it or not.

“What’s the use?” You ask? Well for one, it seems ideal for those marketers who are in the pharma sector and trying to sell Social Media to their clients.

The hierarchy of digital distractions

They took it on to them with a neat, eye candy pyramid.
There is a hierarchy of needs by Maslow- and then there is this intensely illuminating one. Developed by David McCandless, this one is about Digital things that distract you from your work. Of course this is not just Social Media properties- but not a surprise to find too many Social media properties here. (Where is ‘Pacman’? Of course people still play that- it is THE eternal time waster from productivity)

iPhone at the peak makes me wonder what do people fiddle with- I won’t be surprised to find Social Media there too.

“Device failure” at the top cracked me up.

Social Media Propeties
By Social Media agency- “Overdrive Interactive”. The original map in the pdf form could be downloaded from their site here

Nothing fancy- clear and concise- and you know all the properties don’t you? Spot the odd category out of this chart though. Did you feel the inclusion of Search Engines to be a bit odd too?

And then two of my own:

The Social Relationship matrix:

I try to establish that Brands, no matter how loved or disliked they might be, don’t have the same relationships with people- as people have with human relationships. In this case, it was justifying why Brand communications and relationships could be handled by third parties, with sufficient caveats in place. Full read here.

Social Relationship Matrix

The Brand Relationship Onion

I followed up this article with the Brand Relationships Onion . The attempt is to highlight the various ‘layers of relationships’ that a Brand could have with people. This ranges from Distrust to nonchalance to approval to likeness to the holy grail- Love.

Brand Relationship Onion

Think about it
Shalabh